


Les Miserables book report

by SaltyKettleChips



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, book report
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 01:46:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16883283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltyKettleChips/pseuds/SaltyKettleChips
Summary: im literally just posting this here bc my computer keeps deleting my documents and I don't want to lose this.





	Les Miserables book report

Note: my copy of the book is a translation by Norman Denny. The quotes may differ depending on which translation you read.  
Les Misérables is set in nineteenth century France, wracked by civil unrest. The book really criticizes French society at the time, mainly the social stratification (separation of people into a hierarchy based on wealth, power and class), the criminal justice system and treatment of the poor and of women. It’s a good insight, no matter how biased, into French society at the time.  


The book follows many different characters and their stories. The first half mainly follows convict Jean Valjean on his quest for redemption for his crimes and his sins. It also follows inspector Javert and his part-time mission to make Valjean answer for his crimes, mainly breaking parole. The second part follows many different characters and what they're doing during the June rebellion.  


There are many characters that I personally enjoyed, ranging from the street gamin Gavroche and his family, to the Les Amis de l'ABC (the friends of the ABC), a student group of revolutionary republicans.  


My personal favourite is Javert. I enjoyed how rigid his morals were, and I admire how he kept to them to the end. Javert had two main principals, respect for authority and hate for rebellion against authority. These two traits aren’t bad by themselves, but Javert took them to such extremes that they became terrible. He venerated all figures of authority and all crimes to him were forms of revolt. I do not believe he was right in how he thought the world was. He saw the world as black and white, that people who did bad things were always going to do bad things, and that people couldn't change. The world doesn't operate like that, the world is written in shades of grey. There is a difference, I believe, between being lawful and being obedient. If you cannot see worth in breaking a law to save yourself or someone you care about, you have crossed the line from being lawful into obedience. I thought it was interesting how there were many parallels between Javert and Valjean, most notably their backgrounds and their shared time in prison, Valjean as the prisoner and Javert as the warden. Javert and Valjean both grew up in poverty, Javert was “born in prison, the son of a fortune teller whose husband was in the galleys” and Valjean lived in a small village with a poor family. Javert held up the rules almost viciously in an attempt to show people he was worthy, without taking any time to think about what led his parents to be criminals. Valjean ends up in prison as a result of a questionable decision by the justice system for petty theft to help his starving family. He then spends almost two decades in prison for several escape attempts. This leads him to question the justice system, and give him determination to help others who face the same situation, or indeed, any difficulty. I think this also shows the main difference between them. When faced with similar situations, they displayed extremely different reactions. Valjean understood the value of tolerance and understanding through his own experiences, while Javert took to upholding the values of society without thought or consideration.  


One of the most tragic characters in the whole novel is Fantine. When Fantine is first introduced, she's a young woman, around 18/19. She was completely in love with her lover Tholomyès, who is thirty years old. She was shown to be part of a group of four couples, all of which were older than her. The narrator informs us that "It must be said that the three older ones were more experienced, more heedless, and more versed in the ways of the world than Fantine la Blonde, who was encountering her first illusion” This suggests that 19th century French women had to deal with a lot of 'illusions' from men. Of the whole group, Fantine is the least adventurous and the shyest. At one point, we read that Fantine "was happiness itself; but she was also modesty." Part of what makes Fantine's story so tragic, is that she did almost everything right to protect herself, except having a love affair with someone over ten years her senior. Eventually all the men in the group leave, and most of the girls take it in stride, except for Fantine. She had fallen pregnant with Tholomyès child. Before meeting Tholomyès, Fantine was very poor, and when he leaves, she falls back to the poverty line. From there on her life is an almost endless stream of suffering. She ends up giving her child to the horrific Thénardier family because she couldn't afford to pay for them both, although she didn't know they were bad people when they met. One of the reasons her life was so terrible after she had Euphrasie, who she nicknamed Cosette, was the stigma of being unmarried and having a child. People viewed it as a sign she wasn't pure, and that she had fallen from God's graces, as well as how seriously people took concepts such as virginity and marital status. This is shown when a nosy factory worker spends weeks figuring out that she had a child. The woman tells all everyone, and collectively they get Fantine fired. It took very little to get her fired became they believed her to be below the standards they held. This leads to her selling her hair for the money to send to the Thénardiers for Cosette, and for her to sell her two front teeth to a travelling dentist. This symbolises her fall from societies graces. Eventually she takes up prostitution, so she can pay her rent and send money to Cosette. She later gets arrested by Javert for attacking a man who was harassing her. This shows how despite how he was in the wrong, he was of a higher class than her, so the police believed him. After being saved from prison by Valjean and being sent to the hospital she dies from shock after Javert yells about how Valjean was a criminal. To me Fantine represents the brutal attitude towards women, particularly those of the lower classes in nineteenth century who had children despite not being married.  


Its sad how despite the time difference, you can find many similarities between the time described in the book and modern society. For example, the treatment of women and those who had children out of wedlock is mirrored in many third world countries. Also, the way homeless people are treated and ignored is like now. It's not as bad now as it was but many people still just ignore them, while back then they were demonized and treated like they were covered in scum. That's one of the reasons I find the characterisation of the street gamin Gavroche interesting. He's presented as a heroic character, somebody we're supposed to find brave, and feel sympathy for. In reality and in modern times, he would have been demonized for his living conditions and for stealing so he could survive.  


One main theme in the book is religion. We see it time and time again, with the bishop Myriel, the convent where Valjean and Cosette hide out with Fauchelevent, and in the main character himself, Jean Valjean, with his religious awakening. Religion is a driving force for many characters, an excuse to be judgemental or kind depending on the kind of person they are. A fact of the world is that its full of suffering. Another fact is that sometimes the people suffering are innocent like Cosette or harmless like Fantine. Some people take this to mean that God doesn’t exist, or that God does exit but just doesn’t care. Other people take this to mean tat you should believe in God and as long as you live a good life, helping people in need and always acting morally. Les Misérables takes the latter opinion, and this is reflected in how may of the characters act, like Valjean, Enjolras and Cosette.  


Les Misérables is known for its descriptions of the Battle of Waterloo and of the Parisian sewer system. This makes the reader feel as though they’re actually there. Although the description of the battle of waterloo is very interesting, it shouldn’t be taken as fact because it was romanticised and idealised. This was because Hugo was a Bonapartist (he followed Napoleon Bonaparte and his successors) and a republican, much like Marius Pontmercy. Victor Hugo saw the sewers of Paris as the conscience of the city, a place where class didn’t matter and there were no secrets. Hugo also talks about what he saw as huge loss of resources in the sewers. He said that they should use the sewage as fertilizer.  


My favourite side plot was when Marius and Javert team up to stop the Patron-Minette, a gang of criminals, and monsieur Thénardier from robbing and killing Jean Valjean, who at the time was pretending to be Ultime Fauchelevent. Marius, while keeping watch for something illegal to happen so Javert could arrest them, realises that Thénardier was the man who saved his father in the battle of waterloo. He freaks out and doesn’t pay attention, therefore Jean Valjean almost gets murdered. Javert breaks in and arrests almost everyone, because Valjean had fled when he saw Javert, and one of the Patron-Minette, Montparnasse, had skipped out on his duty to watch for the police to go flirt with Thénardiers daughter Eponine. Marius later realises what had happened and gets embarrassed. To avoid talking to Javert again, he moves house.  


The book is about many things: love and loss, hate and joy, war and justice, rebellion and order. But at its core, it’s about how a petty thief can better the lives of many, about how one man can set off a chain of events that can change hundreds of lives, be it for better or worse. It’s about how out of death and disease, a small bit of hope can be born, but it’s also about how that small bit of hope can be squashed. It’s about how poverty drags you down till you’re only a shadow of what you could have been.  


Les Misérables was rather controversial when it was written. It showed a side of society that most people preferred to ignore. It also raised awareness to social inequalities, and to how limited the potential for people who committed even the pettiest of crimes to rehabilitate into society. It gave a voice to the dispossessed, and was essential to the development of social care institutions, such as welfare. The upper classes weren’t very happy about that. The general consensus at the time among them, was that it was well written, but Hugo shouldn’t have written it.  


All in all, I extremely enjoyed Les Misérables, it’s the best book I’ve read in the last two years. It was very depressing at some parts, with just the right amount of humour mixed in at parts. The descriptions were breath-taking, and the characters were well rounded, although some didn’t have first names. It shows how anxious living in a country that’s just had a revolution can be, and it shows how poverty takes basically everything from you. I would recommend this to anyone who doesn’t mind a bit of depressing realism in their books. If you start reading les mis though, you should be warned about its long length, as it will take a long time to read.


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